I used to be a firm believer in karma. I used to believe that the universe would somehow always find a way to balance a negative outcome for a positive one. I used to rationalize everything that happened in life to the equation for the conservation of momentum - energy (everything) cannot be created, only transferred. I grew up with the idea that God would reward me for good deeds, and punish me for my transgressions, however trivial in nature. However, if there's something I can take from the last couple years of my life, it's that life doesn't owe you shit. Not a damn thing. If you do what you've always done, you're going to get what you've always got. Bottom line. Life is nothing but a series of hundreds of billions of dependant probabilities. I say dependant because I feel no two decisions are completely unrelated (The Butterfly Effect). In the same way a coin flip depends on what pocket I took the coin out of, or how I toss it, nothing in your life is purely random. Where you are right now is entirely dependant on every single choice you have made previous to the moment in which you stand.
However, as with all things, time has brought me to a crossroads. Call it a quarter-life mental breakdown, minus the breakdown.
** In the same way John Mayer will never win the World Series, and Albert Pujols will never write a triple-platinum album, I can never be every single thing I want to be in life. We are all victims to age, as we are also held victim to our own capabilities. I could train for 10 years and I'm 99% sure I still won't be the fastest man on Earth. Our generation is fascinated by seeing 'experts' on YouTube, always accomplishing incredible things. My problem is that I have an extremely obsessive personality. When I see someone do something incredible, my first instinct is to figure out what I can accomplish and replicate the feat. Juggling? Got it. Rubik's Cube? Sure thing. A plethora of chip tricks? ...kind of. Being multi-talented, dexterous and intelligent is a blessing, but what does it accomplish? Yes, I plan on putting out albums someday. I also plan on being a world-renowned poker phenom. But why? While I believe I'm on the right track to doing both, I believe I have quite a way to go. What comes next though? I don't want to live the life of a degenerate poker player, but at the same time I'm willing to commit my life to. My goal is not to live someone else's life, or fulfill someone else's goals. Life, as it should be, is a buffet of "Do-Whatever-The-Fuck-You-Want" and that's how it is meant to be lived, imho. (On a side note, poker is not a game of ego. In fact, it's the opposite. Keep your emotions in check, because when the fish you've been jawing for 20 minutes gets AA, the more emotionally involved you are, the worse and more embarrassing it's going to be.)
Anyways, as par the usual... I'm going to leave this blog post with loose ends. Maybe I'll tie em up someday...
Cheers, Jon.
Ps, 2 more weeks til Lindsay. I'm more than excited.
Monday 28 May 2012
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Time For Leaving - Cover
Again, not a proper blog post. Procrastination at its finest.
Here's a video of me covering Daniel Wesley's "Time For Leaving"
Enjoy!
Here's a video of me covering Daniel Wesley's "Time For Leaving"
Enjoy!
Sunday 20 May 2012
Motivation (Or Lack Thereof...)
This morning, I've already succumbed to the reality that this post ends terribly. I have no motivation to write, except the panic of having gone a week without any good ideas. So instead... I'm just leaving you a picture.
When I work up the will to write about something exciting... I'll find some inner strength to write my heart out.
- Jay
When I work up the will to write about something exciting... I'll find some inner strength to write my heart out.
- Jay
How I picture every foreign player when they win a big pot... :-)
Tuesday 8 May 2012
Marathon Man
Sore? Whatchu know about running a marathon? Whatchu know about WRITING one? (Warning, we've got a marathon of a blog post here.)
On Saturday, I finally owned up to myself and decided to take on a long distance run. Okay, so it wasn't quite a marathon. However, for a guy who wakes up and pushes buttons hoping for miracles, the thought of a 25 km run was almost laughable. 25 km? Pfft, no way my three-years-out-of-high-school body could survive the first 100 meters. Let alone how affected my ADD-riddled brain would be, enduring the monotony of running constantly passing field after field. It seemed like the epitome of a horrible Saturday afternoon. However, in the first kilometer of my run, it really dawned on me what I was missing by staying so inactive all these months. Yes, I was sweating instantly (weather: flawless) but there was something more about running than just being in the fresh air. Freedom. It's a simple little kind of free, listlessly floating through the air, doing your body some good, putting your body into motion, connecting to your music while you connect to yourself. It really evokes a lot of self-reflection, something that in my opinion, is lost in every day life. We all do what we do, but in reality, we never really question our own interior motivations. In the words of the great Rick James, "I never just did things just to do them." (Mind you, he's talking about grinding his feet on Eddie Murphy's couch, but I digress...) All I'm saying, is that deciding to go for a run can be difficult for anybody, but that's not the point. It's about goal-setting and reaching your goals. Once you set your mind to doing anything and you accomplish your goal, the emotional reward is absolutely worth it. In poker, it just happens to be a nice monetary reward for success as well. :-) The physical toll of running... well, maybe don't start with 25km. Three days later, and this poor fragile body is still feeling the effects.
Currently, I'm sitting here now, watching a couple great poker players grind out various final tables for thousands of dollars. Incredible? Absolutely. During my final table run of the $27.50, I was asked about how I stayed so cavalier. I was talking to a friend of mine about the rush of the actual play of a final table, and how detached it actually becomes about the money. It's totally in the competitive nature of not only the poker player, but human beings. This gives me a good life thesis statement: The drive to succeed at everything is what motivates me. As I write this, Daniel Negreanu is heads up for the 5 card NL draw bracelet. As he tweets about it, he doesn't mention the $11,000 first prize, but the bracelet. A bracelet! On topic, I got to thinking about the future and how, someday, I would approach playing someone like Negreanu, Dwan, or Hellmuth at a table. Would I be seated solely for the thrill of the "celebrity effect"? Poker is beautiful in a sense that you have that easy, but costly access to playing with the best there is. In real life, I can't call up Roger Federer to ask for a tennis match. Roll up to the Bellagio, and you could find yourself playing against the very pros you watch on TV. Of course, I say this candidly, because I unless I win a Sunday Million in the near future I don't see this happening any time soon. (#whoknows) (A friend of a friend just chopped the $11 deep stack for $1k! Woot! What a grind!) After getting fairly psyched up for today's $11 400k, I busted two hands in, nut flush < full house. (Ad9s < TsTd on a 228T5, dddd board. Check-check turn = Fun times for my stack on the river.) Either way, my passion for actually playing has subsided, and it's actually quite depressing. I watch all this action happen around me, and I know the correct plan of action is to put in volume. I just can't will myself to get over this downswing by investing more of what I can't afford right now, both in time and money. However, I'm really starting to focus on the psychology behind what is actually taking place at the poker table. It's a nice, new perspective.
Anyway, another day of life and whatever comes along with it! Cheers! :-)
On Saturday, I finally owned up to myself and decided to take on a long distance run. Okay, so it wasn't quite a marathon. However, for a guy who wakes up and pushes buttons hoping for miracles, the thought of a 25 km run was almost laughable. 25 km? Pfft, no way my three-years-out-of-high-school body could survive the first 100 meters. Let alone how affected my ADD-riddled brain would be, enduring the monotony of running constantly passing field after field. It seemed like the epitome of a horrible Saturday afternoon. However, in the first kilometer of my run, it really dawned on me what I was missing by staying so inactive all these months. Yes, I was sweating instantly (weather: flawless) but there was something more about running than just being in the fresh air. Freedom. It's a simple little kind of free, listlessly floating through the air, doing your body some good, putting your body into motion, connecting to your music while you connect to yourself. It really evokes a lot of self-reflection, something that in my opinion, is lost in every day life. We all do what we do, but in reality, we never really question our own interior motivations. In the words of the great Rick James, "I never just did things just to do them." (Mind you, he's talking about grinding his feet on Eddie Murphy's couch, but I digress...) All I'm saying, is that deciding to go for a run can be difficult for anybody, but that's not the point. It's about goal-setting and reaching your goals. Once you set your mind to doing anything and you accomplish your goal, the emotional reward is absolutely worth it. In poker, it just happens to be a nice monetary reward for success as well. :-) The physical toll of running... well, maybe don't start with 25km. Three days later, and this poor fragile body is still feeling the effects.
Currently, I'm sitting here now, watching a couple great poker players grind out various final tables for thousands of dollars. Incredible? Absolutely. During my final table run of the $27.50, I was asked about how I stayed so cavalier. I was talking to a friend of mine about the rush of the actual play of a final table, and how detached it actually becomes about the money. It's totally in the competitive nature of not only the poker player, but human beings. This gives me a good life thesis statement: The drive to succeed at everything is what motivates me. As I write this, Daniel Negreanu is heads up for the 5 card NL draw bracelet. As he tweets about it, he doesn't mention the $11,000 first prize, but the bracelet. A bracelet! On topic, I got to thinking about the future and how, someday, I would approach playing someone like Negreanu, Dwan, or Hellmuth at a table. Would I be seated solely for the thrill of the "celebrity effect"? Poker is beautiful in a sense that you have that easy, but costly access to playing with the best there is. In real life, I can't call up Roger Federer to ask for a tennis match. Roll up to the Bellagio, and you could find yourself playing against the very pros you watch on TV. Of course, I say this candidly, because I unless I win a Sunday Million in the near future I don't see this happening any time soon. (#whoknows) (A friend of a friend just chopped the $11 deep stack for $1k! Woot! What a grind!) After getting fairly psyched up for today's $11 400k, I busted two hands in, nut flush < full house. (Ad9s < TsTd on a 228T5, dddd board. Check-check turn = Fun times for my stack on the river.) Either way, my passion for actually playing has subsided, and it's actually quite depressing. I watch all this action happen around me, and I know the correct plan of action is to put in volume. I just can't will myself to get over this downswing by investing more of what I can't afford right now, both in time and money. However, I'm really starting to focus on the psychology behind what is actually taking place at the poker table. It's a nice, new perspective.
Anyway, another day of life and whatever comes along with it! Cheers! :-)
Wednesday 2 May 2012
Nuts and Bolts
Over the weekend, I had the privilege of playing at Live 88.5's 3rd Annual Poker "Event" Freeroll at Casino Lac-Leamy. Overall, this is one of the best "I'm in" decisions I've made in a while. Met a lot of great people, had a lot of great laughs, and regardless if I'm in Ottawa next year or not, I think I have to be here for this tournament next year. It ended up being a winner take all, $1000 grand prize package. 60 person field, 15 minute blinds, 8850 starting stacks... it was just an incredible experience. On a side note, it's nice waking up the next morning, hearing your name on the morning radio not for playing incredibly well, but being overly-entertaining. The day had a bit of everything, great bluffs, great action, great sandwiches (of course horrible, horrible beats) Fwiw, I finished 9th after a fish running at least 80/10 limp-called my UTG+1 10bb shove with J9s. If my name was Phil Hellmuth, it would've ended with a tirade for sure. After a KJ3 board, I pretty much gave up hope. The 10 on the turn gave me a good rush, but a 3 on the river sent me packing! Although, after seeing a friend's TT go down to 66 on a T6Q46 board, I couldn't even stomach calling it a bad beat. In summation, I'm happy I played every hand like a freakin' genius, but I'm even happier with both my social positivity. For the first time in a while, I felt like I was playing poker for recreation. I can get used to how that feels...
On the online poker realm, I've been taking it a little easier as of late. Doing more with my time aside from grinding for 8 hours a day. Not only do I hope this spurs some balance in me, but also opens my mind to some mistakes I've been making due to the monotonicity of pushing buttons. I've began walking for the sake of walking, pushing my body to max itself in different areas - both mentally and physically. For the last few weeks, I've felt like an unhealthy degen. Wake up, play poker, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat. I've been putting 'life' off by telling myself to survive the next month until my new start in Lindsay. When putting that in perspective, I feel I've used that excuse too many times in life. Get through public school, high school is coming... get through Grade 11, grade 12 is close... slush off Grade 12, University is coming... etc. To inspire change, you have to take action in the 'now'. My goal to combat this is to actually accomplish something important before I leave. Yes, I'll be busy more with work picking up at The Source, but I feel I can contribute more to my own life, and the life of those around me. Here's to making the most out of life, and squeezing out every last second. :)
Anyway, no graphs or charts to share half in part to lack of playing, but also to Pokertracker crashing, leaving me with a corrupted database. When I decide to throw a tournament session in, I'll be sure to post the results!
Cheers!
ps, let me know... when it comes to blogging - is shorter better? (Is this short enough?) You all know I'm very self-critical. >:)
---
You can find me on Twitter @JayKon17
On the online poker realm, I've been taking it a little easier as of late. Doing more with my time aside from grinding for 8 hours a day. Not only do I hope this spurs some balance in me, but also opens my mind to some mistakes I've been making due to the monotonicity of pushing buttons. I've began walking for the sake of walking, pushing my body to max itself in different areas - both mentally and physically. For the last few weeks, I've felt like an unhealthy degen. Wake up, play poker, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat. I've been putting 'life' off by telling myself to survive the next month until my new start in Lindsay. When putting that in perspective, I feel I've used that excuse too many times in life. Get through public school, high school is coming... get through Grade 11, grade 12 is close... slush off Grade 12, University is coming... etc. To inspire change, you have to take action in the 'now'. My goal to combat this is to actually accomplish something important before I leave. Yes, I'll be busy more with work picking up at The Source, but I feel I can contribute more to my own life, and the life of those around me. Here's to making the most out of life, and squeezing out every last second. :)
Anyway, no graphs or charts to share half in part to lack of playing, but also to Pokertracker crashing, leaving me with a corrupted database. When I decide to throw a tournament session in, I'll be sure to post the results!
Cheers!
ps, let me know... when it comes to blogging - is shorter better? (Is this short enough?) You all know I'm very self-critical. >:)
---
You can find me on Twitter @JayKon17
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